Posted by kshahkshah 1 day ago
If you happen across a random book burning, can you confidently assume which side they are voting for.
Nowadays, nobody even pretends to not be a liar, from any side. There is no debate that even attempts to look at the facts - it's vibes all the way down and fuck you if you don't agree, only money and guns matter. In the long run, this can't hold.
That order was not perfect, but the alternative is going back to the naked power struggles of the XIX century, which ended in global carneficine - and the next time it will be so much worse.
Actually, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Look at the Chagos deal: that's the new reality created by international organizations catching up with the naked power of the original occupation, and pushing it into a corner. Again, far from perfect outcome (why Mauritius, etc etc), but quite a step forward from brutal colonialism. Humanity wins some and loses some, but at least we're still in the game. If we just give up and accept that might makes right, we slide backwards into the jungle.
It's always held, management just changes. Money and power are two fundamental constants to human nature.
Spoiler: The CIA was formed around rich people's interests and continue to represent them, not in fact, the American people. Harsh reality but helpful to know.
George Orwell (1984)
The Facebook being quoted by so many school kids worldwide was a cheap softening of how the world perceived the CIA and America. Now how valuable that is isn’t clear, but when something is that cheap it doesn’t take much to be a net gain.
What makes the CIA Factbook useful is it reframes learning about other countries.
[1]https://www.walmart.com/ip/World-Globe-for-Kids-Interactive-...
American diplomacy, foreign policy, spying, soft, and hard power etc is obviously primarily targeting non Americans here.
Thus like most things the CIA does this is targeting foreigners or foreign influence, though of course direct impact on Americans is a nice bonus. We don’t want young Americans looking up facts on a Chinese or Russian website.
PS: and I live in Eastern Europe, far far away from the USA.
"President Trump has managed in just one year to destroy the American order that was and has weakened America's ability to protect its interests in the world that will be. Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive. Wait until they start paying for what comes next,"
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/nx-s1-5699388/is-the-u-s-head...
They'll just blame liberals and double down on the authoritarianism as they've always done.
The administration is dispensing with the institutions of soft power. I don't think it's the main goal so much as a consequence of their worldview. Soft power is essentially worthless to people who have no interest in maintaining a facade of international cooperation.
Maybe the traffic made it not worth the cost?
And 'soft power'? Like lying about stats and using it for propaganda? Otherwise its just objective and someone else can do the work. For some reason I never attributed it to the US or CIA.
Not sure its worth dissecting this, but there is a lot of grey area in your claim of the meaning of Credibility. (Credibility and cultural attraction? Pretty sure these have little correlation. Dictators can make creditable threats.) Further, its a debatable claim that there is a 'core currency' of soft power.
As a contextualist, I am not going to die on this hill for your personal meaning of Credibility. But I can attest that your conviction in your claim is stronger than any International Relations Realist practitioner would make.
It's a shame we can't have nice things.
There are lots of ways to measure ethnic groups, the size of the capital or the unemployment rate. If you publish the numbers you get to choose which one suits you best, you just have to be globally consistent
Soft power is spending pennies to convince other countries to do your dirty work.
How much of that actually came from soft power rather than "hard power", like USA actions in WW2?
Some people mentioned the dollar as the global reserve currency, but there's also the use of English as the global lingua franca, the US being the largest global destination for talent and investment, and countries (previous) willingness to make sacrifices or deal with the US on less-than-perfect terms out of a sense of shared culture.
Basically a neoconservative-esque sentimental view of the USA as "the good guys" on "the global stage" (although many would rightly recoil at the comparison to neocons).
[1] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/canada/
[2] https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/